ALLEN PARK — First, Jim Schwartz was not blaming the Lions’ loss on the questionable penalties on Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley early in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s loss at Philadelphia.

At the same time, watching on replay the coach could not see critically timed calls.

“I don’t want to get into what I saw, because I’m not a referee, I’m not an official,’’ Schwartz said on Monday. “Like I said, it’s difficult because one of the things we try to do with penalties is try to learn. OK, this is why they called holding on you, this is why they called pass interference, so that you can try to learn from it and be in better position the next time.
“And in these cases, I honestly don’t know what to tell Nick Fairley or Suh on those plays, but they got called,’’ Schwartz said.

Both appeared to be phantom calls.

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Fairley was flagged for roughing the passer. So instead of a third-and-10 at their own 45 after an incomplete pass, the Eagles had a first down at Detroit’s 40 and two plays later Sean McCoy ran 40 yards for a touchdown to tie the game.

Then Suh was called for defensive holding on the two-point conversion
attempt that failed. That gave the Eagles another chance and it developed into two points.

Sports Illustrated’s Peter King in his Monday Morning Quarterback column, noted four calls “that stunk” in Sunday’s games and the first two were these penalties on Suh and Fairley.

Here’s what King wrote about Suh’s call: “FOX ran it back three times. A hold never happened. A hold was not close. (Umpire Richard) Hall blew it. The ball got moved a yard closer, and Bryce Brown ran in the two-pointer from the one-yard line. Tie game. A total, absolute gift of two points.’’

Is it a coincidence that these bad calls were whistled on Suh and Fairley who have developed reputations of being too rough on quarterbacks and other innocent bystanders?

That shouldn’t work against the beefy defensive tackles, but officials are human too.

“You saw them, I don’t know what else to say,’’ Schwartz said. “They got called. One of them kept a drive alive, one of them was going to be third-and-10 after the incomplete pass. Third-down at any down and distance was hard in that game and that would have given us a big advantage to be able to get the ball back.’’

Schwartz or someone from the Lions calls the league office “about every week” for clarification of calls.

“I have never been one to come up here and talk about conversations we had or if this call was wrong or if this call was right,’’ Schwartz said. “That’s not our job, our job is play and coach and their job is to officiate. Those two plays are difficult because it is hard to tell those guys what to do any different. I would be surprised if the League had a different stance on that. If they told us, ‘Hey this is what they did wrong.’”

It wasn’t just those two phantom penalties that hurt the Lions. The others could have been legitimate — it was hard to tell in the snow.

Those were two of just nine penalties for the Lions while the Eagles had only one. For the Lions it had something to do with being the visiting team and dealing with the loud Eagles fans who have a reputation too.

“The defensive offsides was very difficult and they were judgment calls. There was some movement, they were snapping the ball of the snow, and they weren’t snapping the ball off the ground so there was a lot of movement with the ball,’’ Schwartz said. “ It was very tough to discern who was at fault. They were also the home team and they didn’t have problems with counts.’’

Schwartz was very matter of fact on Monday, less than 24 hours after the loss. He didn’t appear to be angry, more resolved to the fact that his bunch survived the snow bowl and did their best in the circumstances even if it was with a loss.

On a positive note, the Lions won’t have to deal with the elements in the final three regular season games — two at Ford Field and the finale at Minnesota’s Metrodome.

The fact remains that Suh and Fairley have earned quite the reputations, mostly deserved.

In snow or no snow, they will not get the benefit of the doubt from officials.